Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The Standard in Service.

Heard an
unbelievable customer service story the other day that would not only amaze
most people but also spark thought on the services & experiences we pay for
on a daily basis – and whether those services meet or exceed our expectations.

First the
story.

I recently checked out
of the Ritz-Carlton Toronto hotel and depart as normal. I have a car picking me
up in the round a bout outside the front doors. I jump in, and we drive
to Niagara Falls - this is 1hr45 outside of Toronto.

When I arrive at the
hotel in Niagara Falls, I go to check-in and my wallet is missing. Knowing I
had checked out 2hours ago, I knew it could only be at the Ritz. So, I
immediately call the front desk and ask if they have found my wallet. They said
they hadn't & assured that they would call if anything showed up.

15 minutes later.

The front desk at the
Ritz calls me to let me know they have found my wallet. They inform me that
they looked throughout the lobby and outside…and that they found it in the
driveway. This impressed me! They specifically took the time to look (rather
than just saying they will) and actually followed up.

At this time, they asked
me where I was. I told them that I was in Niagara Falls. They said they would
call me back in 10min to figure some sort of arrangements.

Here's ‘The Kicker’ -
they called back within 10min and said:

"Mr. Green, we
have coordinated one of the staff to drive your wallet down and deliver it to
you. He will be leaving in 10mins, so you should have your wallet no longer
than 2hours. What hotel are you staying at?"

I was BLOWN away! I
thought they would call back to overnight it via UPS or another courier
service. It blew my socks off. My response was, "Are you serious? You're
actually going to drive it down here for me?"

The gentlemen replied,
"Yes, Mr. Green. WE ARE The Ritz-Carlton - this is what we do"

What a story. For pretty much any consumer, that would exceed all of their expectations. However, that exact example is the expectation that the Ritz Carlton sets for their service. And anything below it would not be acceptable & reaching the standard they are known for.

Which begs some of the following questions...

Should a service provider try to meet customer expectations or always try to exceed them?

If we are consistently trying to exceed them, how do we do it?

Let's dive further into this.

Many
management consultants would urge service companies to ‘delight’ or ‘go above
& beyond’ with customers to gain a competitive edge. The delight that they
refer to is a profoundly positive emotional state that results from having
one’s expectations exceeded to a surprising degree.

Picture it
like a series of rings. The innermost bull’s-eye refers to the basic function
of the product or service, called musts. Their provision is not particularly
noticeable, but their absence would be. Around the musts is a ring called
satisﬁers: features that have the potential to further satisfaction beyond the
basic function of the product. At the next and ﬁnal outer level are delights,
or product features that are unexpected and surprisingly enjoyable. These
features are things that consumers would not expect to ﬁnd and they are
therefore highly surprised and sometimes excited when they receive them.

Delighting
customers may seem like a good idea, but this level of service provision comes with
extra effort and cost to the organization. Therefore, the beneﬁts of providing
delight must be weighed. Among the considerations are the staying power and
competitive implications of delight.

Staying
power involves the question of how long a company can expect an experience of delight
to maintain the consumer’s attention. If it is ﬂeeting and the customer forgets
it immediately, it may not be worth the cost. Alternatively, if the customer remembers
the delight and adjusts his or her level of expectation upward accordingly, it
will cost the company more just to satisfy, effectively raising the bar for the
future. Recent research indicates that delighting customers does in fact raise
expectations and make it more difﬁcult for a company to satisfy customers in
the future.

Many
companies today talk about exceeding customer expectations by giving more than
they expect. First, it is essential to recognize that exceeding customer
expectations of the basics is virtually impossible - delivering the core
service is what the company is supposed to do. Companies are supposed to be
accurate and dependable and provide the service they promised to provide. At
the end of the day, it is very difﬁcult to surprise or delight customers
consistently by delivering reliable service.

How, then,
does a company delight its customers and exceed their expectations?

In any
service, developing a customer relationship is one approach for exceeding
service expectations. The Ritz-Carlton Hotels provide highly personalized
attention to its customers. In each hotel within the chain, a special
organization exists called guest recognition. This special function uses a
database to remember over 800,000 guests and generate information for all
appropriate staff. It stores: likes/dislikes; previous difﬁculties; family
interests; personal interests; preferred credit card; frequency of use of the
hotel; lifetime usage/amount of purchase. In this way staff are able to
understand what is ‘new or different’ about an individual customer.

Another
way to exceed expectations is to deliberately under-promise the service to
increase the likelihood of exceeding customer expectations. The strategy is to
under-promise and over-deliver. If every service promise is less than what will
eventually happen, customers can be delighted frequently. As an example,
promising a specific delivery time and consistently exceeding the expectation
by delivering the product or service earlier – same goes with quoting jobs. And
although this reasoning sounds logical, we should weigh two potential problems
before using this strategy:

Customers with whom a company
interacts regularly are likely to notice the under-promising and adjust their
expectations accordingly, negating the desired beneﬁt of delight.

Under-promising in a sales
situation potentially reduces the competitive appeal of an offering and must be
tempered by what competition is offering.

A third
way to exceed expectations is to position unusual service as unique rather than
the standard. Whether it be planned spontaneity or suggested that the increase
in level of service or delivery of product was for a specific & valuable
reason – like a ‘special or feature’.

And
lastly, the final way to exceed expectations is to create a higher service
delivery standard in the first place. If the bar of expectation within the
organization is raised to a higher level (that exceeds the standard of the
service delivery amongst the competitors), then it automatically will
differentiate themselves in their marketplace.

At the end
of the day, to develop a true customer franchise, we must not only consistently
exceed the adequate service level but also reach the desired service level –
which can be hard to find these days!